Where’s the compassion? Radiologist writes column on hospital billing practices
Hospitals should show more compassion in the way they bill low-income patients, according to a new column from David Levin, MD, of the department of radiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.
In the column, published this week by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Levin wrote that hospitals “certainly” still need to get paid for services they provide, but “they should not be in the business of bankrupting patients.”
“We’ve all heard horror stories about poor or uninsured patients who need to have a routine MRI or visit an emergency room, only to get socked with a gigantic bill that will take them years to pay and could eventually bankrupt them,” Levin wrote. “This could also happen to patients who have insurance but, either knowingly or unknowingly, go outside their insurance company’s network for care.”
Levin used the example of a simple MRI to show how complex billing can be for patients, suggesting that hospitals consider billing “financially unstable” patients at the Medicare rate. The patients would need to show evidence of their financial situation to receive such treatment, he added.
Click below to read his full column.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.